Sunday, 15 March 2015

You Know You Want It

Have you
ever caught a glimpse of something and for no logical reason, really wanted
it?I have.

This
weekend was a bit of a wash out.It wasn’t
convenient for me to collect Dominic this weekend which was a huge
disappointment.Still, I was still
looking forward to golf with Alex followed by lunch at the Mangais
restaurant.The first F1 race of the
season was kicking off in Australia so, with them being hours ahead of us, it
looked as though today would be an early start, Formula One over breakfast,
golf and then a leisurely lunch.Not a
bad way to spend a day.

It started
raining last night and it chucked it down all through the night.Alex woke up half way through the race so I
made him breakfast while we sat with faces glum as the rain thumped the roof
and Hamilton drove 58 times round Adelaide.With one Ferrari out, Alex was only half interested so spent his time
running in and out of the cottage to prove to me that he wasn’t getting that
wet.He really wanted to play golf and I
think he has the right temperament to be good at it; only a madman would want
to go out in a torrential downpour and knock a ball around.

For his sake,
I was praying it would stop raining but had given myself a deadline of nine-thirty;
if it hadn’t stopped by then, I’d call the instructor and confirm what he
already probably presumed, we weren’t coming.We got ourselves dressed and at the appointed time, the rain
stopped.We hadn’t even made it to the
main road when, with an almighty clap of thunder, the heavens opened again with
a real vengeance and suddenly we weren’t riding bikes, we were navigating a
river.Alex rode into a pothole and was
stuck. I tried to turn round, caught my front wheel in a submerged rut and went
over the handlebars grazing ankle, knee, shoulder and head.

‘Oh dear,’
I said.

I wasn’t
going to quit first, though.I remember
once really wanting to do something with my father, we had tickets to the Motor
Show at Earls Court but the weather was so bad, so atrocious, that he had
second thoughts.The forecast was for
freezing fog, black ice, downed power lines, jack-knifed lorries and closed
roads.I think they were even thinking
of calling the Army out.When my dad
cancelled, I thought he was a wimp.

Alex and I
made it onto the dirt road on the Golf course before he bogged in again.I was finding it hard going but not even in
the lowest of his eighteen gears could Alex make any headway at all. We couldn’t
even walk in the stuff, two steps and the morass had sucked our shoes off.Even though he looked miserable as hell with
the conditions, he still left it to me to suggest we knocked it on the head and
went home.

Alex went straight
in and I rinsed the mud off the bikes under the deluge cascading off the
roof.Marcia came out onto the veranda,
obviously having made none of the preparations women usually subject themselves
to if they know they will be seen in public.

‘Are we
still going for lunch?’ she asked.

‘Of course,
darling, I’ll just get changed’

Somehow,
the thought of sitting in an air-conditioned restaurant in the middle of a
thunderstorm didn’t really appeal to me, half the fun was being able to sit on
the deck over the river and enjoy the scenery but if they really wanted to go,
we would.

By the time
Alex and I were showered and dressed again, Marcia had changed her mind (come
to her senses, more like).This suited
me fine, now Alex was blaming her instead of me.I rustled up as nice a lunch as I could and
afterwards listlessly read a book.Even
though I had selected a Frederick Forsyth, staple fare for anyone bored out of
their skull, I couldn’t get into it, instead becoming increasingly annoyed with
every technical error: ‘A shaped charge only blasts forward…’, bollocks, try
standing behind a High Explosive Anti-Tank shaped charge when it goes off, it’ll
do a bit more than ruffle your hair.It’s
like Hollywood when the hero fires a recoilless weapon from inside a car. Jesus, they’d only do it once in real life.

So I
started to scroll through past auction results and realized I had just missed
Maximilian Schell’s old car.Maximilian
Schell was a fantastic stage and screen actor, one of a bunch of post war
German speaking actors who starred opposite American and British counterparts
in every classic war movie as either snarling Nazis or, usually in Schell’s
case, reasonable Wehrmacht or Luftwaffe officers coming to terms with what was
turning out to be a bit of a losing streak.When, in ‘A Bridge Too Far,’the
characters of Hardy Kruger and Maximilian Schell were discussing where and why
all these British paratroopers were landing and the possibility they were after
the General, Hardy Kruger said, in German, ‘Perhaps they’ve already landed in
the General’s soup’ to which, with an impeccable delivery Schell replied, ‘Yes,
you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’Brilliant.

Now I
wouldn’t pay a premium to own a car just because a famous bum had nestled in
its upholstery but I would be interested in a one owner, molly-coddled example
of an R107 Mercedes SL.The car had been
bought for Herr Schell new by the MFG film studio in 1977 and he had kept it
ever since.He took it for its last
outing aged 82 when he married his long-time girlfriend who was 35 years his
junior.At the time this induced a bit
of friendly speculation as to which was older, the car or his bride.Clearly he loved both.The thing that made his SL special for me was
the trim, gorgeous blue coachwork over a saddle tan leather interior.I would have enjoyed Maximilian Schell’s car
knowing that he and I had the same taste.

The exquisite taste of the late Maximilian Schell, a Magnetitblau-metallic V8 Mercedes SL
with saddle tan leather upholstery and an opera singer.

The auction
house which handled the sale of this car also does fine art.I know nothing about fine art except that I
can’t afford it.Still, it’s nice to
look at so I thought I would scan the lots in their forthcoming Easter
sale.They give you the choice of either
downloading their pdf catalogue or just scanning an excel style list with thumbnail
images.I chose the latter, hardly the
best way to appreciate what I was looking at but I pay per Mb here so I am
tight.

The sale is
in Salzburg so there were the expected religious paintings, mountainous
landscapes and figures in lederhosen and I was scrolling faster and faster when
my eye was caught by a quite unremarkable painting.It appeared to be a group of five figures
standing somewhere forlorn but it was the way the subjects were arranged, almost
in two distinct groups that attracted me so I clicked on the link to go to the
more detailed page.With a much higher
resolution I could see that there was definitely something going on there.This was a depiction of two groups, together
in space and time but separated by some strong emotion.I could see in posture and expression, the
bleakness and lack of detail in the landscape, the pile of discarded garments the
strength of feeling between the participants.There was a story here, raw and savage.Then I looked at the title of the painting, ‘Duel on the Beach.’

I have no
idea who Alfeo Argentieri was.He may be
considered a painter of daubs, a waster of good canvas and paint but in my opinion
here he has caught men at their most intimate, when they are about to try and
kill each other.

It isn’t a
large painting, only 40 x 60 cms, and he has been a bit mean with the
paint in places.It is described as ‘Krakelee,
Reinigungsbedürftig’, which means it is dirty and the paint is cracked but I
like it.I like it so much I’m going to
have a punt on it.I may be buying what
the knowledgeable would be too polite to describe as a heap of shit, I don’t
care. And I suppose that’s what art is
all about.It isn’t to brighten a room
up or cover an unsightly patch in the plaster, it isn’t to fit in with the décor,
it is something far more personal.Even
as a 200 pixel wide thumbnail, it caught my eye and I have been staring at the
high resolution image of it I downloaded all afternoon.I know that if I am lucky enough to own this painting,
it will give me pleasure every time I look at it. I know exactly where it is
going to go, right above my desk.

35 comments:

I can't resist a painting I like, and I can't resist on line auction houses and catalogues and when I'm not working I like go to the local auction rooms. My downfall is old French carpets, and Middle Eastern rugs, and 1960s designer lamps and 1960s contemporary art. So I understand where you are at with this picture. I also like the buzz of putting on the bids. I actually don't always want to be successful.

This isn't an online auction where apart from the mad flurry at the end, you might have time to think, this is a real auction with 500 odd lots going through in a couple of hours. I would be bidding against people in the room. With the way the internet connection goes up and down here, I have decide how much I am willing to pay and then set up an absentee bid. Not nearly as much fun, eh?

This is what I meant. I put the bid on against the auction room. I don't know all the terminology. But I have to keep away from it, I bought too much stuff in this way. My local auction house is Gaze at Diss, a good old fashioned auction room.

No doubt an interesting painting and a reasonable choice if the price is not too far off the ordinary pedestrian's reach. In most regards I am as cheap as they come but like you at times I have champagne tastes on beer budgets. Not ninety miles from me the James Julia auction house this weekend had up for bidding the collections of some recognized notables in firearms history. If you have some megabytes left on you internet connection you can peruse the available examples here: http://jamesdjulia.com/catalog/?division=596

Go for it! I hope you manage to get it and are not disappointed, it seems to really have grabbed your interest and that's the best way to buy art. Hopefully, up there above your desk, you will get lots of pleasure from it

I'm not a petrol head, but when my old friend arrived here last year in his Merc 500SL I just had to take it for a spin. I drove about 50 kms in it. What a fabulous car; I imagine the ride is quite similar to the older R107. When you put your foot down, it means business.

The heart wants what the heart wants..there is no explaining it. My Pa absolutely loves a painting in the corridor of our local hospital. My Pa as far as I know has no interest at all in art in any shape colour or form but this one makes him stop and stare at it wistfully.....and it is the most straightforward 3 colours in a linear arrangement modern thingy that I think even I could reproduce...I got in touch with the hospital to see if I could buy it and apparently it is worth thousands of pounds.......so I took a photo and I'm going to see if I can have a go at something similar.....but why he likes it I have no idea.....good luck with your bid.

The heart wants what the heart wants..there is no explaining it. My Pa absolutely loves a painting in the corridor of our local hospital. My Pa as far as I know has no interest at all in art in any shape colour or form but this one makes him stop and stare at it wistfully.....and it is the most straightforward 3 colours in a linear arrangement modern thingy that I think even I could reproduce...I got in touch with the hospital to see if I could buy it and apparently it is worth thousands of pounds.......so I took a photo and I'm going to see if I can have a go at something similar.....but why he likes it I have no idea.....good luck with your bid.

Our house is lacking in art and photos at the moment. Since we've moved here and had the kids none of our old stuff seems appropriate to our lives anymore. We will have to get something on the wall soon though as I love a good picture.

The only "things" I have ever glanced at and wanted is women. It is like an affliction. I can imagine lying on my deathbed and checking out the ward auxiliary who has just entered the room to change my jug of water. Cor blimey! Much more enticing than any car.

Alas, I do not -- but, it's a fair assumption considering where I live.

Winslow Homer has always moved me, because his paintings have the kind of nuance I can appreciate and understand. Perhaps it was because my father had a great book that explained just one of his paintings (Gulf Stream). The understanding that man had of the outdoors life is remarkable, and wonderfully expressed in his work. Also, he can paint a dory in such a way as to make me want to build one.

This is the precise weblog for anybody who needs to seek out out about this topic. You notice so much its almost arduous to argue with you. You positively put a brand new spin on a subject that's been written about for years. Nice stuff, simply nice!

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I first came to Africa in the early 90's, supposedly for one year. Six months in Mozambique followed by six months in Angola and then home again. Over 20 years later, I am still here.
I have gone where the jobs were, in mine clearance, security, the oil industry, anything that would put bread on the table. I have a farm in southern Angola and am building a lovely restaurant and hotel on the banks of the Rio Kwanza where the river spills into the Atlantic ocean. I am 55 years old, have two sons aged 16 and 6, a longtime girlfriend 21 years my junior, three dogs and a fine goose which we keep meaning to eat at Christmas but somehow never do.